Virtualized network function (VNF) on-boarding describes the process by which a VNF is made available to a network functions virtualization (NFV) platform, allowing its life-cycle operations, such as deployment, scaling, healing, software upgrade and termination, to be automated. As an essential and critical stage in the transformation toward NFV, on-boarding is a topic of strong interest for the industry, which is working through the ETSI standardization body and open source movements, such as OpenStack®, in advancing common standards, formats and methodologies. Nokia’s CloudBand™ platform is a market-leading NFV platform, compliant with the ETSI model. Our CloudBand solution is based on OpenStack technology and is actively contributing back to the open source movement. The CloudBand platform allows for different models of VNFs, allowing for a rapid initial on-boarding and launch, and then a gradual transition toward the full life-cycle management of the VNFs.